No deal as UN's latest Libya mediation effort ends
Rival sides in Libya's long-running conflict concluded their latest round of United Nations-led talks on Monday without reaching a deal on rules for long-delayed elections, the UN said. The presidential and parliamentary elections, originally set for December 2021, were meant to cap a UN-led peace process following the end of the last serious round of violence in the country from 2019 to 2020. But the vote never took place due to the presence of contentious candidates and deep disagreements over the polls' legal basis between rival power centres in the east and west of the country. Representatives of the Tripoli-based High Council of State and of the parliament, based in eastern Libya, began meetings in Cairo more than a week ago, but without success. "The third and final round of negotiations between the Joint House of Representatives and High Council of State Committee on the Libyan Constitutional Track drew to a close in the early morning of 20 June," said Stephanie Williams, the UN's top official on Libya. "Differences persist on the measures governing the transitional period leading to elections," she said in a statement. She insisted that the sides had "achieved a great...